Where it All Began

Wow! I haven't posted a Life Before Blogging entry in forever! Hopefully it is not because I am starting to forget.... Anyway, I am at my parent's house this weekend, and I ran across a blast from my freakin' past. It is not only a relic of my extreme nerdiness from my younger days, but I also believe it is a sign of things that had not yet come to pass. It is unequivocal proof that both the person I am today was lurking inside of me somewhere and I am basically the same person today that I was then. Tis a paradox.

It is: Casio's My Magic Diary JD 5000 aka Mary's first computer/planner

I wanted this thing SO BAD when I was like 10, and I was only getting a $10.00 allowance every week. My best friend Stephanie and I both wanted one, but they cost $50, which was a lot for us back in the day. This was in the very first years of the craze known as PDAs, and the Magic Diary was a version for teens. I can remember vividly going to Wal-Mart (of course! where else would all the fun stuff be in central Texas?!?!?) and gazing at it longingly in its little glass display case with the grown-up electronics. Previously Steph and I had tried to play Spy with paper notebooks with huge padlocks on the outside of them (another day, another story), and having an electronic device that you could password protect seemed AMAZING to us. I think the fortune teller and matchmaker functions also held immense appeal to two pre-teens girls with huge crushes on indifferent boys. We FINALLY got them and entered all of friends' info into them, along with choosing crude analog likenesses of them for their profile, very similar to having someone's pic come up when they call today. I mainly love that it is called My Magic Diary; this is SUCH and early 90s thing. It was not magic in any way, nor was it a diary, except for the Notes section it has. There is a calendar, conversion chart, telephone/address book, and time zone calculator. These are actually all very grown-up things, I think.

The point is is that it kicked butt, and I have NEVER been able to even think about throwing it away because it truly represents my inner workings. I wish the batteries weren't dead so I could peruse it, but I am going to have to go to the antique shop to make it work again. I love coming to my parents' house because all my childhood stuff is stored in my room, and going through it is extremely fun. Make sure you show some love to the Magic Diary!!!